German Kamikazes - The Leonidas Squadron

[Music] all of us are i think familiar with the film of japanese kamikazes crashing their planes into united states and british ships of okinawa in 1945. to many this form of self-sacrifice is a peculiarly japanese phenomenon hardly surprising from a nation that considered surrender the greatest shame imaginable and death in battle the highest expressions of both manhood and devotion to their god emperor surely no other nation practiced such a barbaric tradition as the japanese kamikaze well in point of fact there was one other nation that did nazi germany the idea of using volunteer pilots for missions against the enemy that could have involved deliberate suicide at the controls of an aircraft did not suddenly appear in the last desperate weeks of world war ii in europe rather such total missions as the germans turned them had first been proposed long before d-day and the allied landings in france in summer 1944. the idea was first floated in february 1944 by two officers one was germany's renowned commando leader s.s oberstenbenfuhrer otto scotseni who amongst his many exploits had sprung deposed italian dictator benito mussolini from confinement atop the grand sasso mountain with the force of paratroopers and ss commandos in a glider assault in 1943. scotsaini made the suggestion to create a suicide squadron the same time as oberst hayoo hereman a top luftwaffe officer who was inspector general of night fighters at the time and holder of the knights cross and oak leaves heremann advocated ramming enemy bombers it appears that the notion of a suicide unit of volunteers was to tap into some of the fanaticism among some luftwaffe aircrew harking back to the kind of german mythology much idolized by nazi propagandists such pilots would make the ultimate sacrifice for their country and their fuhrer by helping to offset the numerical imbalance the luftwaffe increasingly faced in trying to prevent american and british bomber streams from attacking germany incredibly young men were willing to volunteer for such a unit perhaps even more incredibly it was a woman that persuaded a reluctant hitler to allow scorcenei and herman's mad idea to become reality hannah reich was germany's top test pilot a fearless aviatrix much admired by hitler and the devout nazi she was one of only three women to be awarded the iron cross first class and the only one to receive the pilot observer badge in gold with diamonds earlier wright had been the test pilot for the junckers ju-87 stuka and dornier do-17 bomber and had earned her iron cross test flying the messerschmitt comet rocket-propelled interceptor she had managed to survive several narrow scapes with this temperamental though brilliant aircraft reich thought that suicide attacks would be useful against allied ships exactly the same method used by the japanese against massed enemy invasion fleets in the pacific casting around for a suitable aircraft reich suggested the messerschmitt me328 originally conceived as a cheap escort fighter the 328 was designed to be towed to altitude then released and using two pulse jets from a v1 rocket dive into the american bomber streams but the pulse jets didn't function well at medium to high altitudes due to lower air pressure reich had personally flown the glider version which with a 900 kilogram or 2 000 pound bomb slung beneath the fuselage could dive silently down to crash onto allied ships in total nine messerschmitt 328s were built but none ever saw action rex fuhrer ss heinrich himmler approved of raichu's plan but the luftwaffe high command was naturally wary of such a venture and even hermann gehring showed little interest in the project but on the 28th of february 1944 hannah reich presented the operation suicide plan to hitler at his private house the berkoff in southern bavaria hitler didn't think the military situation was yet bad enough to warrant such an extreme measure but reich won hitler's approval and the fuhrer ordered the project given to general gunter corten chief of the luftwaffe general staff the unit received the nickname the leonidas squadron after king leonidas the first of sparta who in 480 bc with just 300 men had stubbornly held thermopylae pass in greece against a 100 000 man persian army fighting to the last man the unit was part of kampfgeshwader 200 for administrative purposes kg 200 being a special squadron used to test enemy aircraft dropped secret agents and various other nefarious activities seventy volunteers were gathered together they each signed a declaration which read i hereby voluntarily apply to be involved in the suicide group as part of a human glider bomb i fully understand that employment in this capacity will entail my own death at this point the messerschmitt 328 project was dropped in favor of a modified v1 flying bomb called the fiesta fi-103r the r standing for reichenberg the name of the capital of the former czech territory of the zidane land seized by germany in 1938. the standard v1 which was of course a pilotless robot bomb as the british called them was augmented by the addition of a small enclosed cockpit with an armored front panel the wings had hardened edges to slice through the cables of defensive barrage balloons the launching method involved two reichenbergs carried aloft by a heinkel he-111 bomber released near the target the pilots would aim their aircraft at the target then somewhat optimistically bail out at the last moment it has been calculated that because of the cockpit's proximity to the pulse jets intake the chances of successfully exiting the aircraft was less than one percent some manned training flights were made using unpowered glider versions of the reichenberg the first test launch of a manned and powered reichenberg was made at reklin in september 1944. the plane was released from a heinkel 111 but crashed when the pilot accidentally released his cockpit canopy hannah reich made several subsequent test flights surviving several crash landings but the kampfgeschweider 200 commander lieutenant colonel verna baumbach was dead against the aircraft in october 1944 he managed to shelve the reichenberg project in favor of the mistel project even though 175 units had been manufactured mistell the german for mistletoe was not a suicide weapon rather the mystile was the larger unmanned component of a composite aircraft configuration it consisted of a small piloted control aircraft mounted above a large drone packed with explosives the most successful combination was the focavulf fw190 control aircraft mounted on top of a pilotless juncker's ju-88 bomber the mystell would be released by the pilot aircraft and fly into its target while the fighter and its pilot survived to fight another day mistels were used in action on the eastern front in 1945 and a few on the western front as well but had minimal impact on the soviet or american advances and were in fact easy prey for allied fighters a group of pick-a-back planes on the way toward the allied lines are intercepted by p-51s of the eighth air force the pikabats are a combination of a paka wolf 190 fighter on top of a junker's 88 twin engine bomber the bomber is filled with high explosive and released near the target like a bomb the pakka wolf 190 controls the flight of both planes each of which provides its own power the mystery program had no use for the leonaida squadron suicide pilots but it seems that the unit did eventually see action at the very end of the war from the early stages of the battle of berlin the leonaida squadron was based at uttabog and was ordered to knock down bridges over the older river which had been captured by the red army between the 17th and the 20th of april 1945 35 one-way sorties were flown by leonidas squadron pilots no special aircraft were used rather any available fighters mostly messerschmitt bf-109s and fw190s were pressed into service the luftwaffe claimed that 17 bridges were destroyed in this manner but this is unlikely an exaggeration the railway bridge at custrin was the only one definitely knocked down by suicide aircraft 35 german pilots died during these operations causing some disruption to the red army but by the 20th of april soviet ground forces were approaching utebog airfield and the leonaida squadron ended operations you may recall that i mentioned one of the architects of the german suicide program colonel hayo hermann had suggested ramming american bombers his idea was eventually to produce another luftwaffe unit that can be termed a semi-suicide operation zonda commando elba but more on that in another episode thanks for watching please subscribe and share and also hit the bell icon you can also help to support my channel at paypal and patreon details in the description box below

Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 1,037,348

Keywords: Mark Felton Productions, German Kamikazes, Leonidas Squadron, V-1

Id: D1aYEoqQgCY

Length: 10min 56sec (656 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 25 2019